{
  "id": 7833333,
  "title": "PMO Only Authority To Grant Sanction For Prosecuting IAS Officers, Centre Tells Madras High Court",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/16/pmo-only-authority-to-grant-sanction-for-prosecuting-ias-officers",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-09-16T16:26:02.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Free Press Journal",
    "slug": "free-press-journal",
    "url": "https://www.freepressjournal.in/india/pmo-only-authority-to-grant-sanction-for-prosecuting-ias-officers-centre-tells-madras-high-court"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Government of India has informed the Madras High Court that only the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has the authority to grant statutory sanction for prosecuting Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers in criminal cases. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) submitted this before the court in a case that was heard on Wednesday. The PMO's authority over sanctions was questioned by the court earlier, which had asked the DoPT to explain the delay in obtaining sanction for prosecuting IAS officers facing corruption charges. The Department argued that the files related to such cases are sent to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) for remarks, and then forwarded to the PMO for sanction. In a particular case involving two IAS officers from the Tamil Nadu cadre, the DoPT stated that they had received a large volume of documents from the State government, which they had to review before sending to the CVC. After this, the documents would be sent to the PMO. Justice Anand Venkatesh adjourned the case to November 12.",
  "summary": "Chennai: The Government of India has informed the Madras High Court that only the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) can grant statutory sanction to prosecute officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in criminal cases. The PMO alone was the competent authority for this purpose, the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India, submitted before the Madras High Court in a case on…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}